Can patient reported data and outcomes improve cancer treatment? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Perhaps you’ve reported your own blood pressure measurements or blood sugar to your physician. So called patient reported data that is monitored by a nurse helped make cancer treatment just a little bit smoother and easier, a new study finds. Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson at Johns Hopkins explains.

Nelson: It was more than 1000 adult patients in the middle of treatment. The intervention group got weekly surveys for up to a year or until they were finished their treatment. This remote monitoring was clearly associated with improvement in quality of life and physical function, improvement in symptom control, and improvement in health related quality of life. This is a little bit complicated when it's going to get to the deployment. In the community they found that only about a little bit less than two-thirds of the weekly surveys were completed. The adherence to the program declined.  :32

Nelson says some combination of system-based monitoring along with self reports may turn out to be best. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.